Thoughts without language.

[alloneallalone]

I thought about this last night, and found it quite interesting to ponder.

I've realized that most everything I think is translated into words, I talk to myself in my head all the time, and anything that doesn't get translated into words is more likely emotion that I don't attempt to decipher.
So I feel as if the english language is a code for deciphering my own thoughts, and not just a way of expressing my experiences and feelings to others.

So if I had been born, and entirely neglected other than being fed, never hearing a word, how would that have affected the way I decipher my thoughts? I mean, I suppose it would be easy to observe the physical realm that I could perceive without words, but what about interpreting and expressing my emotions and observations into an inner dialogue? It seems like without speaking to internally, I wouldn't have much communication with myself at all.

I'd really enjoy hearing anyone else's thoughts on the subject, and sorry if this isn't the most appropriate section to post this.

I love you.

Thanks for reading.

 

[changalvia]

I wish I could have a source for this but I read a story a couple years ago about a couple who had children, maybe on but probably 2, that they left outside up until they were aken out of custody of the parents.

The children would sleep in the dog house, and the dogs would even give them the food to eat.

When the kids were found by authorities the children could not speak, but actually barked like the dogs that raised them... Chilling stuff

This is a very interesting topic, keen to see what people might have to say

 

[Global]

You know it's kind of funny. I often notice this the most in the shower where I have the least amount of distractions from the outside world, and I'm alone with my thoughts. I've noticed (even before I took any drugs of any kind) that I'll have a thought in my head, and I'll instantly, intuitively understand the thought from start to finish, however the mind still feels the need to interject the actual language. After I have the thought, I have to patiently wait for the slower moving voice in my head to "transcribe" everything as it were. For some reason I can only get satisfaction from the thoughts typically after I've let them run their full verbal process, although sometimes I may cut myself off if I get the gist of the thought and I think I'm being long-winded :lol:

This idea is kind of reminiscent to me of interaction with entities and energetic objects in hyperspace. We often have this feeling of having information "downloaded" to us, but we're not really sure what we're downloading, where it's being stored, or what in the world it's actually doing anyway. Regardless, a lot of times I'll only get that similar satisfaction when the entity or object actually makes contact with me. I may see them first, but sometimes it almost doesn't feel "official" if they don't make contact and don't create that visceral connection. It's as if in the case of thinking, the wordless thought is there first, and then the words meander their way into consciousness.

 

[alloneallalone]

Thanks for the input global, I feel the same way, it's almost as if the thought itself comes as an instant realization, that I have to then put into words in order to discuss it with myself in my own head, like I can't expand on a thought and go through it without using language to explain it to myself.

As for communicating with beings in hyperspace, I'm pretty sure I've never heard them say anything, not that I can remember at least. they instead seem to communicate with me through thoughts and emotions that aren't granted words, and maybe that's why I can't put the thoughts and feelings into words when I come back? because I didn't quite do it then, so I have no reference point to return to, it's just a jumble of feelings that I haven't learned to properly interpret yet.

There are several thought's I'm sure I neglect to put into words because it would have a minimal feeling of accomplishment for such a difficult interpretation. Lots of emotions that I ignore and let flow through me at times, So without language would our minds just be a flow of thoughts, observing and forgetting about emotions and certain realizations or philosophies without really delving into an inner dialogue? Do you think we would be able to elaborate on these ideas with ourselves if we couldn't have that inner dialogue?

 

[alloneallalone]

Also, changalvia, I do believe I've read that story, I wonder if they actually constructed a functional language out of it, or they just barked in different tones and such to signify different emotions and observations without really having "rules" for the language.

 

[G_rambo]

Very cool topic, I myself have also wondered what it would be like to think in a different language's. This may not seem very out of the ordinary for bi-lingual speakers but for someone who only currently speaks English it seems very strange. Especially to think about an African language say speaking in noises not like our own language and how that gets translated into thoughts.

Another thing to think about is how these different languages may be handled by the brain like how people speaking in Spanish may be able to understand things faster than lets say someone speaking in English.

Sorry if I got off topic

 

[universecannon]

Interesting topic. No doubt we could probably talk about this endlessly! :]

The majority of the time it seems like i don't think in actual words..Often times when they are there, they don't have center stage..or something. Very hard to explain or try to quantify just how much one thinks in words and how much they don't.

This actually was related to some kind of depersonalization/self identity issues when i was younger-when i realized that i didn't have a stable or consistent internal voice i could identify comfortably with as ME. Hard to explain, but for a while there i thought i was going schizophrenic. I think the powerful psychedelic (and sometimes anxiety inducing) affects marijuana would have on me had something to do with bringing this issue to the forefront of my awareness, or maybe a part in causing/exasperating it..i don't really know

I guess i'm mostly healed now? Maybe not.. who knows :lol:

Anyways I think in the cerebral West we wrongly de-emphasize more abstract and intuitive ways of thinking and feeling, including body language, visualizing, emotions, our senses, etc..Right brained activities...There is probably other evolutionary factors involved in why this is...But the end result is that by the time we're grown up, most people are heavily stuck into that left-brained conceptual language-based mental world we use to move through reality...Where a more direct experience and perception of this sea of reality around and inside us is constantly being distilled down into a diluted (deluded? ^.^) analytical model, and this goes on somewhat unconsciously most of the time.

Its interesting that many researchers like Ramachandran etc are finding this exact information in their own studies..The right brain experiences reality much more directly, and the dominant left dilutes it down into clumsy little maps or models.. Thats not to say that this left brain mode doesn't have its uses. Obviously it does.. But a lot of times we lack a sort of balance; and in extreme cases this seems to be partly responsible for horrible acts (i.e. religious crusades) due to people confusing they're mental models with reality.

Luckily we have these psychedelic plant teachers that catalyze the imagination and abstract ways of thinking :thumb_up:

 

[Parshvik Chintan]

You know it's kind of funny. I often notice this the most in the shower where I have the least amount of distractions from the outside world, and I'm alone with my thoughts. I've noticed (even before I took any drugs of any kind) that I'll have a thought in my head, and I'll instantly, intuitively understand the thought from start to finish, however the mind still feels the need to interject the actual language. After I have the thought, I have to patiently wait for the slower moving voice in my head to "transcribe" everything as it were. For some reason I can only get satisfaction from the thoughts typically after I've let them run their full verbal process, although sometimes I may cut myself off if I get the gist of the thought and I think I'm being long-winded :lol:

stole the words right out of my... mind?

 

[alloneallalone]

Anyways I think in the cerebral West we wrongly de-emphasize more abstract and intuitive ways of thinking and feeling, including body language, visualizing, emotions, our senses, etc..Right brained activities...There is probably other evolutionary factors involved in why this is...But the end result is that by the time we're grown up, most people are heavily stuck into that left-brained conceptual language-based mental world we use to move through reality...Where a more direct experience and perception of this sea of reality around and inside us is constantly being distilled down into a diluted (deluded? ^.^) analytical model, and this goes on somewhat unconsciously most of the time.

:

Thanks for your response, This really invoked some serious thought on the subject, and of course, I put those thoughts directly into words. lol.

I think it may be an evolutionary trait we've developed, I haven't done much research on the origins of written and widely understood languages, but I think it's safe to say we've been communicating successfully with some form of vocalization for a good bit of time, maybe enough time that evolution has worked spoken language into a form of interpretation for our thoughts, because speaking and writing are obvious solutions to our inability to communicate our exact feelings to each other, since body language and other signs can be far more difficult to accurately interpret. But I agree with you on the left brained thinking possibly becoming a habit too, I can't really remember a time when I didn't put my thoughts into words, But I wonder if I did it alot less as a child, and really just came to do it all the time because it was the easiest way to complete all the mental tasks I was encouraged to complete in school, having to interpret everything from text books into my own mind, and memorize them as well. It makes sense, that if one is constantly exposed to analyzing spoken and written language while they're expected to be concentrating on just that, that they would also learn to use that in other aspects of life as well.

And as for your inner voice, I find it very difficult for me to determine what my inner voice actually sounds like, or even at which point my thought becomes translated into words.
I don't know, I find it all really difficult to pin down and think about.

I'm really enjoying these responses, Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts on examining your own thinking processes.

 

[TOXSIN]

Watch the movie "Mama" you would wind up like the youngest daughter...

 

[universecannon]

" I can't really remember a time when I didn't put my thoughts into words, But I wonder if I did it alot less as a child"

Oh for sure..Before learning language children don't experience that inner voice categorizing things at all. This is probably in part why they look tripped out and in a state of utter awe and fascination with the most simple things in the external world. Then its just progressively conditioned into them over the years and they become less familiar with the world and more familiar with their mental and linguistic models of it

 

[G_rambo]

That's very interesting universe cannon i also have been going through a stage where I am constantly asking myself am I scizo? and the more I concentrate on it it seems like I basically trip myself out about it... I have been to therapy a handful of times and confronted the therapist about it and he seems like I am not but it is always in the back of my mind. Also whenever I take drugs especially LSD it gets to where i'm going through a loop of am I crazy? I am only 18 so really it's just a waiting game to see if i truly am but I am keeping a positive mind and have been doing better.

 

[alloneallalone]

Well noted and understood Universe Cannon, I wonder, if I avoided speaking, reading, writing, and interacting with human beings for a few year, if that would cause me to think more in the same way I did before I learned to associate everything with the english language, or if I abolished the english language in my life, and say, went somewhere where only spanish is spoken, if my inner voice would start speaking in spanish...

I don't think I'll ever personally figure this out. But it's fun to think about.

G_Rambo, I personally think alot of mental disorders can be adapted to, or eliminated completely, I've come to the conclusion that I'm crazy on a few occasions, but then I think everyone is a little crazy, some don't admit it, even to themselves, but the structure of our society, and our individual lives, is pretty crazy. This universe is pretty crazy, so, if you are crazy, at least it's not abnormal.

 

[hixidom]

This is an episode of Radiolab that I think is quite relevant to this topic. I found it very interesting when I first heard it on NPR a while back.

Podcast | Radiolab | WNYC Studios

Investigating a strange world.

www.radiolab.org

 

[Mustelid]

Years ago when I in meditation classes, the goal of one particular type was to go into an "alpha" state of consciousness. You might have heard the description of "clearing the internal chatter." By that, in this case, it's not the removal of all thoughts, rather the removal of linguistic thoughts.

I feel that on DMT I'm forced into the alpha state, and can't think with words at all until I start coming back.

 

[Global]

" I can't really remember a time when I didn't put my thoughts into words, But I wonder if I did it alot less as a child"

Oh for sure..Before learning language children don't experience that inner voice categorizing things at all. This is probably in part why they look tripped out and in a state of utter awe and fascination with the most simple things in the external world. Then its just progressively conditioned into them over the years and they become less familiar with the world and more familiar with their mental and linguistic models of it

Without the words, they probably have a much more direct experience of reality, experiencing it entirely as the thing-in-itself.

 

[alloneallalone]

Mustelid, I'd really like to learn a little more about reaching an alpha state of consciousness, maybe binaural beats would help?

 

[Mustelid]

alloneallalone, binaural beats are good in my experience, just make the resultant wave in the 8 to 12 Hz range.

Years ago a friend of mine had a Patrick Flanagan neurophone, an strange device that you could hear music plugged into it, with a transducer on your knee or some other place touching you, even far from your ears. When he ran an alpha wave binaural beat into it, and I had the device touching my skin, I was amazed, my thought at that point was that someday drugs will be digitally downloaded.

Unfortunately, the device is quite expensive at over $800. And Flangan sold a device called the Neurophone golden-ratio series which can't have audio inputted into it.
Frankly, having read the new-agey marketing of the thing, I would have never believed that the original neurophone worked if I hadn't had first hand experience with one.

Meditation is also good, be aware, let visions come but practice shutting down the internal dialog.

 

[universecannon]

harmalas can also put you into an alpha state very reliably, especially in conjunction with a sound/light machine (binaurals synced to LEDs). binaurals alone are good too though

 

[nexalizer]

Interesting topic!


I usually don't verbalize to myself; I tend to think in pictures/images and visualize the state of whatever it is now vs how I want it to be and take action based on the (visual (mind's eye)) difference to bring it about.

If it's something else like deciphering someone's face or judging if I'm hungry or whatever then I move attention from the senses inward and look into the "inner board", where the answer will usually be intuitively.

That's not to say I never verbalize though, if it's a complex problem and it overpowers my capacitity to visualize it then usually I will write it down and then (again, depending on the size of the problem) will be able to visualize it a bit more by remembering my actions when writing down or scanning the page re-reading the text.


It's funny, this is one of the reasons I disliked alcohol even before discovering psychedelics; it kills my ability to visualize; weed on the other hand tends to enhance it, but then of course often I couldn't remember what I was 'seeing' 30 seconds ago:lol:

As far as I remember I've always enjoyed visualizing but came to rely more and more on it as I read on bunch of topics.

It's interesting that this tendency remains in spite of me reading in some form for at least usually 4 hours a day.